N.J. political group pays top consultants well, but its mission is murky

A group called NJ 4Ward quietly entered New Jersey’s political scene four years ago with an ambitious, but vague, mission.

The new nonprofit's stated purpose was to provide “enthusiasm, support and financial assistance to the residents and local communities of the State of New Jersey for the betterment and/or improvement of public education, health care and other social welfare issues," according to its registration with the Internal Revenue Service.

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But what exactly the group has done to further that mission is unclear.

The tax-exempt group — which qualifies as a 527 organization under the federal tax code — has collected and spent about $175,000, mostly on political consultants with ties to some of the state's top Democratic politicians.

Its donations come primarily from a group of 21 firms that have had hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with New Jersey state and local governments.

The group’s filings with the IRS list the payments only as “consulting” fees, and most of the consultants declined to elaborate on their services to POLITICO New Jersey.

The primary recipient of NJ 4Ward’s money is also its president: Political fundraising consultant Ray Ferraioli, a fundraiser for many Democrats and organizations, whose clients include the Democratic State Committee and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.

Ferraoli has paid his own firm, H&P Consulting, $128,581 from NJ 4Ward’s coffers. He did not return several phone calls seeking comment.

In addition to Ferraioli, NJ 4Ward has paid:

•Tom Bertoli, Fulop’s top political consultant. His firm, Urban Logistics, was paid $8,600 in 2012 and 2013.

•Pablo Fonseca, a former aide to then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker who now works as a spokesman for West New York Mayor Felix Roque’s administration. Fonseca’s firm, Newark Strategy Group, was paid $13,000 in 2014.

•Anthony Salters, a Union County Democratic consultant and municipal Democratic chairman of Hillside. His firm, Media Allies, was paid $7,500 in 2014.

The biggest single donor to the organization was Ryan Graham, an executive at Fairview Insurance. Graham gave $20,000. His firm works for more than 30 public entities in New Jersey, including the Jersey City Board of Education.

All told, the 21 firms that have donated to NJ 4Ward made more than $144 million from public contracts in New Jersey in 2014 alone.

Only one of the political consultants paid by NJ 4Ward — Salters — returned a phone seeking comment. Salters, who declined to say who approached him to work for the group, said he was asked to evaluate a list of local political candidates and to give his opinion on whether they could win their elections.

“Basically, I advised them strategically,” he said.

Many of the donors to NJ 4Ward have contracts in Jersey City and connections to Fulop. For instance, Brian Nelson, an attorney at Archer & Greiner, is listed as donating $5,000 to NJ 4Ward this past June. Nelson is a Republican, but he’s raised money for Fulop — the only Democrat he’s given to, according to a search of records on the state Election Law Enforcement Commission’s website. His firm was named one of several bond counsels for Jersey City in September 2014.

Jersey City spokesman Ryan Jacobs said NJ 4Ward itself has nothing to do with Fulop and has never worked with the mayor directly or indirectly, despite its ties to his consultants.

“Ray [Ferraioli] is paid for his services out of the mayor’s election account,” he said. “Ray has multiple fundraising clients, including almost every county organization, and I am sure many contractors do business in many of those counties and cities. After a cursory review NJ 4Ward’s records, it’s clear that many of the listed entities have no relationship with Jersey City.”

Jacobs said Bertoli, Fulop’s political adviser, “does political organizing all over the state at both the local and state level” and that payments Bertoli received from the group would not be “in relation to the mayor.”

Many of NJ 4Ward’s donors would be barred from giving large sums directly to many candidates around the state because of local pay-to-play laws intended to stop campaign cash from influencing the awarding of contracts.

“It’s another way around the pay-to-play laws,” said Jeff Brindle, executive director of the state Election Law Enforcement Commission. “I think the public is losing out. They’re losing [out on] disclosure. ... And obviously tangentially it has to have something to do with politics and elections in New Jersey, but it’s one of those areas that unfortunately the law doesn’t cover.”

A spokesperson for the IRS said it does not comment on specific groups' filings and did not respond to a question about how much such groups are required to disclose.

But Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, said campaign finance laws give wide latitude on how political organizations report their expenditures.

“They have to put their purpose of the expenditure, but there is very little oversight and enforcement of that. The rules are vague,” she said.

“It has not gotten the attention it deserves, and there have been very few calls for strengthening the disclosure rules,” Krumholz said. But she added that the political will to change strengthen the rules just doesn’t seem exist. “I think it’s a tall order.”